Teacher who fled abroad with girl pupil, 15, finds a love his own age
DISGRACED teacher Jeremy Forrest, who triggered national outrage when he ran away to France with a 15-year-old pupil, has found a new girlfriend following his release from jail.
The 33-year-old has reportedly been dating 29-year-old Cassie McGeough for nearly three months.
Ms McGeough is understood to have fallen for the musicloving former maths tutor over a shared passion for heavy metal bands.
However, her new relationship has sparked fear among her friends that Forrest deliberately glossed over murky details of his past.
One friend said: “He told her he only ran away with the girl because she was going to go anyway and he wanted to make sure she was safe.
“I think he told her quite soon after they met about his past but seems to have sugar-coated it.”
Forrest sparked an international hunt four years ago when the then-married teacher groomed the Sussex schoolgirl has the and persuaded her to run away to France with him.
As her family issued a distraught appeal for information, the pair caught a crossChannel ferry from Dover before making their way to Bordeaux, where they were arrested.
Forrest was jailed for five-anda-half years at Lewes Crown Court, Sussex, in June 2013 after being convicted of abduction and admitting sexual activity with a child.
Judge Michael Lawson, QC, told Forrest he had encouraged the girl’s infatuation with him as a instead of doing his duty teacher and stopping it.
Since his release from jail last year, Forrest has reinvented himself as a tattooed rocker, playing gigs on the pub circuit near his new home on the east coast.
He is believed to have met Miss McGeough in a pub and they are understood to have discussed the idea of having a baby together.
The couple were photographed buying alcohol from a local shop, with Forrest wearing a T-shirt showing his tattoo-covered arms.